Furnace Failure

[OldForester]

In our winter hideaway in Palm Springs, I have become used to getting up early in the morning and turning on the furnace on our 2006, then going back to bed for 30 minutes for the coach to warm up. Usually when I turn the thermostat/controller on and set it to furnace it fires up right away.

This morning the furnace wouldn't light. It wouldn't turn on the fan, which it always does ahead of lighting the furnace, and I think it is supposed to do to make sure the airways are clear of any residual propane. So I used the heat pump to heat the coach this morning.

I have checked the wiring, and the fuse, and they're OK, but the fan won't get going, and thus the furnace won't get going. The heat pump and air conditioner system work fine. I suspect it's a control board issue.

Since it will be a couple weeks before I can get a technician to look at it, and we have a two week trip to Texas starting next week which may be sans furnace, I was wondering if anybody else has had this same issue and may have a thought or too on a anything to check before I leave or the technician gets here.

[OldForester]

In our winter hideaway in Palm Springs, I have become used to getting up early in the morning and turning on the furnace on our 2006, then going back to bed for 30 minutes for the coach to warm up. Usually when I turn the thermostat/controller on and set it to furnace it fires up right away.

This morning the furnace wouldn't light. It wouldn't turn on the fan, which it always does ahead of lighting the furnace, and I think it is supposed to do to make sure the airways are clear of any residual propane. So I used the heat pump to heat the coach this morning.

I have checked the wiring, and the fuse, and they're OK, but the fan won't get going, and thus the furnace won't get going. The heat pump and air conditioner system work fine. I suspect it's a control board issue.

Since it will be a couple weeks before I can get a technician to look at it, and we have a two week trip to Texas starting next week which may be sans furnace, I was wondering if anybody else has had this same issue and may have a thought or too on a anything to check before I leave or the technician gets here.

[EngineerMike]

IIRC there is a switch on the removable access panel that must be depressed for the furnace to work. Removing the panel breaks contact of the switch. Once on my previous rig, the panel rattled loose & the switch wasn't depressed, but I was when the furnace didn't work & we were dry camping. Might check that & see if the access panel is fully installed.

[OldForester]

EngineerMike,

Thanks for the tip on the switch. We found the problem; a wire nut that connects the main 12VDC power to the fan and the switch had become hot, melted part of the plastic covering, and turned the copper threads dark black, expanding the nut and loosening the wires. The wire nut became too hot to touch when we jumped the wires to the switch.

It was a matter of cutting the wires, putting on a new wire nut and checking it out. It works fine now and remains cool as it should. We suspect the nut came loose because the wire bundle was R-clamped to the floor and it was very tight, pulling on the wires.

We're just happy it didn't get hot enough to catch on fire.

[Old Scout]

Interesting, we had the furnace wire vibrate loose at the 12v fuse connection--same outcome, it melted about an inch of insulation off the wire and deformed the fuse to the point I could hardly get it out of the panel to replace it. Have also heard of wire nuts vibrating loose at the generater connection/junction box and in the 110v junction box under the bed on triple slides.